The development of modular electronic and opto-electronic systems has been accompanied by a need for hardware components and device interconnection or coupling configurations that afford ease of assembly and fidelity of signal coupling across various interface points. For example, numerous types of electrode connectors are available for coupling printed circuit boards or cards to cabinet or hardware mounting receptacles. At the lower end of the signal spectrum the signal highways on a board or card have been advantageously formed by intricate patterns of selectively plated or etched conductive film that is joined to a considerably physically larger connector electrode arrangement that may serve to both electrically connect the card with an interface port device in the rack or cabinet in which it is mounted and provide actual physical support for the card in its housing.
Where the circuit cards or modules include electrooptic or opto-electronic components requiring the need for optical communication highways such as optical fibers, separate connectors exclusively for the optical connections apart from the normal electrode connectors must be provided. Because of the characteristics of optical fibers and associated optical signalling components, extremely precise coupling between components to be joined together is required and often leads to mechanical configurations that are complicated, bulky, or hinder the physical handling (e.g. insertion and removal) of the printed circuit card or module from the support housing in which it is retained.
Descriptions of examples of prior art configurations for joining optical fibers together may be found in the U.S. Pat. Nos. to Slaughter 4,076,376, Martin 3,948,582, Dalgleish 3,923,371, Makuch et al 4,140,367, and Dalgleish et al 4,008,948. For the most part such arrangements require the actual physical handling of the connector assembly when joining the fibers together and none are suited to facilitate the blind coupling of a card or printed circuit board mounted device to a housing connector. For example, the connectors described in the patents to Martin, Dalgliesh and Slaughter are basically cable-to-cable couplers that must be manipulated by hand with the male and female sections being carefully guided together followed by the positioning or displacement and tightening or gripping of a surrounding outer sleeve section. The couplers described in the patents to Makuch et al and Dagleish et al may have one section bulkhead mounted, with the other section attached to the end of a cable the carried fiber or fibers of which are to be coupled to the fiber or fibers held by the connector section that is mounted on the bulkhead. Still, careful hand-manipulation of the joining of the cable end to the bulkhead receptacle is required and neither type is suited for a blind coupling of an optical fiber mounted on a card or printed circuit board of the card support.
In FIG. 1, there is a general illustration of the mounting of a printed circuit board or card 8 containing a plurality of electronic components 7 provided on the card and which are usually joined with one another by way of a selectively etched or plated conductor highway pattern on the surface of the card to a bulkhead type of connector. Printed circuit card 8 may include an electro-optic or opto-electronic component 6, such as an LED, APD, etc. electrically coupled to the conductor highway pattern and optically associated with a fiber coupling portion 1 that contains an optical fiber strand. The hardware interfacing of the conductor highways on the card to the outside world is usually achieved by a connector 5 physically attached to one end of the card. Connector 5 may include a plurality of conductive pins that are electrically joined to the conductor highways on the card and which have a physical configuration such that they couple to an associated plural pin connector mounted to a bulkhead or drawer wall 100 in the housing containing the card 8. The pins of the connector mounted in the bulkhead or wall are attached to the wires of electrical cable that extend exteriorly of the housing. Thus, the printed circuit card connector serves dual functions: it provides a conductor hardware interface between the components that are soldered to the plated conductor highway on the card 8 to exterior electrical wires; and it serves as a mechanical support and attachment for mounting the printed circuit card 8 to bulkhead 100. Moreover, both of these functions are achieved simultaneously during assembly simply by inserting the card and its attached connector 5 into a corresponding connector mounted on bulkhead 100. Unfortunately, the coupling of the optical fiber leading from component 6 to a bulk-head connector 2 has not been accomplished so easily, since prior art fiber connectors are basically cable-to-cable connectors requiring independent and careful hand manipulation. Even in those arrangements that are adapted to be coupled to a cabinet type or bulkhead mounted connector, such as described in the above-referenced patents to Dalgleish et al and Makuch et al, the attachment of the cable plug to a bulkhead mounted socket requires hand manipulation of the coupling components.